It's been just one week into the 2020 shortened MLB season, and both the Marlins and Phillies had to postpone upcoming games due to an alarming number of positive COVID-19 cases. How will the Yankees respond to this? SI's Kaitlin O'Toole is joined by InsidethePinStripes writer Max Goodman to delve into the thought process of the Yankees front office, and how MLB is shifting its rules amid the coronavirus uptick.
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00:00Over half of the Marlins active roster has tested positive for coronavirus, the
00:05total number being 16 confirmed cases on Wednesday. The team is currently
00:10isolating in Philadelphia after a weekend series with Phillies, but
00:14surprisingly all Phillies staff members and players have tested negative for
00:18COVID-19 for two straight days. Joining me now from inside the pinstripes is Max
00:23Goodman. Max, thanks for being here. The Yankees were set to face the Phillies on
00:28Monday. That game obviously postponed. Let's talk about the impact COVID is
00:33already having on the Yankees just one week into the season. Sure, Caitlin. It's
00:39it's been a hectic couple of days for Major League Baseball. So you touched on
00:43this. The Yankees were going to play the Phillies, the team that had just played
00:47against the Marlins, and over half of their roster is now testing positive
00:51with the coronavirus. And we had a chance on Zoom this afternoon to talk to Mike
00:56Ford and Adam Adovino, two guys on the Yankees, and they said that that they're
01:01still 100% comfortable moving forward with this season, that seeing a team have
01:06so many positive diagnoses didn't exactly change the way that they feel
01:11moving forward. They both are comfortable with the risks that they're
01:14in, especially with someone like Mike Ford, who plays first base and you can't
01:17really distance when a runner is at first. He said he doesn't plan on wearing
01:21a mask moving forward. And speaking of that, Adam Adovino said that he wants to
01:25keep a close eye on J. T. Rail, Muto and Reese Hoskins, the Phillies catcher
01:29and first baseman respectively, because if they end up testing positive down
01:33the road, then you have to kind of assume that it came from that Marlins
01:37series. So if if the Phillies air clean across the board moving forward, the
01:41Yankees can move forward as well, knowing that they never ended up
01:44actually going into the Phillies visitors clubhouse, and they now moved
01:48on. And there's so many moving parts with their schedule changes now, too.
01:51But it's just going on to the next day, Caitlin and trying to win ball
01:55games. So you kind of mentioned this just in your last statement. But even
02:00though the fact half the rosters tested positive, Yankees are okay to continue
02:04and to head to Baltimore.
02:06Right. And I think it's worth noting that the schedule changes that have
02:11just happened instead of playing four games against the Phillies this week.
02:15Now they're gonna play four games next week, which means from Monday to
02:19Thursday, they'll be either in Philly or at home in the Bronx, and then they
02:23have four games to play against the Tampa Bay Rays in three days. So we may
02:28actually see a double header, which then dips us into these new rules that MLB
02:33is is, uh, debating and potentially gonna be testing out moving forward
02:38with not having each game be nine innings and having one or two
02:42potentially be seven, something that Adam out of vino is very much not in
02:45support of because he's a late inning reliever, and that would potentially
02:48leave him meaningless if he's not needed in those games.
02:52Yeah, memo went out today asking players to see if they will change
02:57some of the rules to help maximize the health. Great insight from the Yankees.
03:00Max, thanks so much. Appreciate it.